Resolved Safely remove external drive

Hi. I have often read that it's dangerous to unplug a USB drive without using the "disconnect safely" routine from the icon in the system tray first. So I've always tried to remember to be virtuous and follow this routine, even though on the few occasions when I forgot and pulled the USB pendrive out of the hub without doing it, my PC didn't explode or otherwise react badly. Seems to be a little like unprotected sex? ;-)

However, recently that little icon has stopped appearing for no apparent reason, and I've been obliged to pull the plug without protection, so to speak. And it's not that it's disappeared because it's been hidden because not in use - it simply isn't there. Therefore three questions:

1. is it really dangerous to do this (will my computer get pregnant)?
2. if that icon isn't visible, why not?
3. if it stays out of sight, is there an alternative way to stay safe?

 

Many thanks, Arie. If a Microsoft MVP never uses it, that's good enough for me! And for the same reason, I won't bother to bring it back either, but thanks anyway for explaining how to.

Still leaves me with some curiosity about why it was put there in the first place, and what sort of damage it was supposed to prevent, but I'm not going to lose any sleep over it.

 

So presumably it's just a case of being sure all the data have been totally written|read to|from the external drive and that nothing is left "hanging ". In which case it's just a matter of not pulling the plug immediately after a read|write operation, but waiting a couple of seconds for all read|write operations to have been carried out - is that correct?